Randy Foster: A farewell to Francine

Published: Friday, May 24, 2013 at 03:12 PM.

Just outside my office, a dozen yards away, Francine Sawyer is tying up loose ends on a story she is working on about minor flooding in Vanceboro.

It is her last story for us. Francine Sawyer, after 44 years as a journalist, is retiring.

In about an hour (she refuses to leave early), she will end a career that started in 1969 when newspapers used Linotype machines, manual typewriters and Speed Graphic cameras, and when photos were run in black and white and astronauts first walked on the moon.

Francine was gathering news when I was still in elementary school. She was a veteran when I graduated from high school.

During her years in the business, she worked at five newspapers, one TV station and one radio station. She’s covered every beat, anchored the news on TV, Tweeted headlines and shot video from cameras smaller than the pack of cigarettes she carries in her purse. She even tried her hand at public relations.

She saw the newspaper industry go from being the dominant source of news, to one in a crowd.

Just outside my office, a dozen yards away, Francine Sawyer is tying up loose ends on a story she is working on about minor flooding in Vanceboro.

It is her last story for us. Francine Sawyer, after 44 years as a journalist, is retiring.

In about an hour (she refuses to leave early), she will end a career that started in 1969 when newspapers used Linotype machines, manual typewriters and Speed Graphic cameras, and when photos were run in black and white and astronauts first walked on the moon.

Francine was gathering news when I was still in elementary school. She was a veteran when I graduated from high school.

During her years in the business, she worked at five newspapers, one TV station and one radio station. She’s covered every beat, anchored the news on TV, Tweeted headlines and shot video from cameras smaller than the pack of cigarettes she carries in her purse. She even tried her hand at public relations.

She saw the newspaper industry go from being the dominant source of news, to one in a crowd.

She worked in smoke-filled newsrooms where journalists kept flasks of whiskey in their top desk drawers (and some kept revolvers), where the smell of the press filled the building and dust from the printers’ ink gradually darked walls, ceilings and floors.

She leaves a tidy, bright and sunny business office with far fewer colleagues, shiny floors, and computers five years past their prime.

Francine is one of the most candid people I know, but she was hesitant to break the news to me that she was retiring.

She didn’t want a big sendoff (though we gave her a sendoff anyway, a potluck lunch on Thursday with her Sun Journal colleagues and a gift basket).

Several of us in the newsroom asked if she wanted to go to lunch on Friday, but she declined.

Instead, she worked through lunch waiting for a call from Craven County Emergency Services Coordinator Stanley Kite with information about flooding in Vanceboro.

Francine is well connected with local law enforcement officials. She could call them at home late at night and they didn’t seem to mind. She was the only reporter on the Sun Journal staff who could get New Bern City Attorney Scott Davis to return her calls.

Francine came from a time when a reporter could walk up to a beat cop or a firefighter and get detailed information about the store robbery or house fire she was covering.

It’s harder to get that information these days. Police and fire departments all want the information to come from a central source, and that information is most often sparse and sterile.

I was lucky to land at the Sun Journal four years ago and spend that time working with Francine, one of the funniest and candid people I’ve ever known.

Her departure from the Sun Journal newsroom will leave its mark. Of course other journalists with strong personalities will rise up to fill the void, but no one ever can take the place of Francine Sawyer.

I will take this moment to wish Francine all the best in her retirement, and hope that she will feel free and welcome to visit the newsroom any time to share her insights and quips and newsy gossip.

Thanks for letting me take up some of your Sunday morning.

Randy Foster is managing editor of the Sun Journal. He can be reached at randy.foster@newbernsj.com or 635-5663. Follow him on Twitter @NBSJEditor for Sun Journal-related tweets, or @rivereditor to follow other things that interest him.